We are already feeling the wrath of climate change, seasons cycles have changed and the weather has become more unpredictable. Recent rains have resulted in great losses to vegetable and to less extent fruit farmers in Britain.
Britain’s harvest of peas, the biggest in Europe, has been devastated by the weather, with as much as 50,000 tones of the annual crop of 150,000 tones expected to be lost. Some individual farmers may lose 70 per cent of their harvest.
Problems of water logging have killed innumerable plants since any pea plant whose roots are under water for more than a few hours will die. Also because of the rains the short period of only about 12hours during which peas are planted and harvested with military precision has been missed.
The planting system for other plants has also been disrupted these include brassicas; cabbages, cauliflowers and sprouts, for harvest in the early autumn. Vegetable growers in eastern Britain, from Norfolk to Scotland have been hardest hit, with losses especially concentrated in Lincolnshire and South Yorkshire.
By contrast, the £350m harvest of soft summer fruit; mainly strawberries, but also raspberries, blueberries and gooseberries has been largely protected by the widespread use of polytunnels, an agricultural development that has upset many people as it spread across the countryside in the past 15 years and is not approved of by many environmentalists.
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Source: The Independent